This invention relates to a music playing apparatus which has a combination of a master electronic apparatus and a slave playing apparatus such as an electronic musical instrument, which is connected to the master electronic apparatus.
Various music playing systems have been developed in which a personal computer, for instance, is used as a master electronic apparatus and a slave electronic musical instrument generates a sequence of tones according to programmed music playing data supplied from the personal computer.
There have also been developed various music playing systems, in which an electronic musical instrument is also employed as the master electronic apparatus and in which the master and slave electronic musical instruments both play music in synchronism to each other.
In such a case, the tempo of playing is usually set by transferring data which determines the tempo from the master side to the slave side. Therefore, it is impossible to vary the tempo while it is being played from the slave side. Particularly, when music is automatically played on the master side and manually played on the slave side, it is very inconvenient that the tempo cannot be varied by an instruction from the slave side. Further, where a personal computer is employed as a master side apparatus, it is necessary when changing the tempo to interrupt the program routine being executed, and then to correct the tempo-determining data and resume the routine. Doing so, however, is practically impossible while music is being played.